Thanks to FaceBook’s new feature, “Memories”, I have recently been revisiting my blogs from twenty eleven. Five years ago. I am struck by the audaciousness with which I expose myself. Every time I read an entry, I fall to my heart’s knees in empathic reverence for the rugged terrain of both Heart and Life (these two dimensions tend to hopelessly bleed together into a vast, sloshy, ecstatic mess) that I not only was willing to traverse, but also to share with such generous abandon. I feel a sense of awe for what I have survived, where I have arrived… and the whispers that rise up in me and hint of the horizons and summits I will yet Realize. Over the past few years, I have become a bit more conservative in my sharing. Because I’m afraid of saying things that will upset others. Especially Ed, I s’pose. Self-imposed censorship is one of the most unwieldy demons to contend with as a writer. Because if a writer is not ripping the “Jesus bandaid” off, and being outrageously naked… well… she’s just another homogenized, factory farmed, word squanderer.

Watch me, as I shove my lovably cowering self back out under the lonesome, prismatic floodlight of center stage… Reluctant, heroic, naked… A beacon in an otherwise blackened domain… cradling my own majestic, pulpy heart in my cupped hands.

Yes, my heart. Somehow it found its way under the wheels of a big rig this past week. Thank GOD I invested the model with the lifetime warranty, way back when.

Serena will be three months alive, two days from now. And so far, since her arrival, most of my writings have been high notes. Can you blame me? What could be a higher note than the blessing of finally having an excruciatingly essential prayer answered in technicolor surround sound? I knew from the the tootsie roll center of my very own address in Infinity that it was my calling to bring a daughter into the world and give my all to assure that she hit the ground DANCING, as she lives out her star-child soul mission… But I did NOT know the holy implications of this sublime calling. Serena is the joy of my life. So naturally, I have been exploring these new dimensions of ecstasy on the page.

I thought I was done suffering about her dad, Ed. The married policeman (hilarious, huh?) who somehow stole into the farthest, deepest and tenderest neighborhoods of my heart. (As if there are any neighborhoods in Here that are not all that…) But there’s something about him… That I really… like? Love? Need? Prefer? Yes, all of that…

We’ve known each other for nearly four years now. And have been fervently clutching the feeble, rapid-thrashed life-raft of our devoted dream of being together for a solid three. But Ed’s always been explicitly committed to keeping his family together until his youngest sun graduates from high school. Ha! Talk about a scenic tour through the land of breathing cliches! It’s the new Disneyland river ride!… Not purported to be scary… The colorful boats are structurally sound, and meander along a questionably grimy little manmade stream. You pass through dim caverns, entering a series of romantic scenes: a big, solid man and a swooning firecracker of a goddess sharing perfectly delicious moments of electric love-infused adventures… soaking in naked embrace at Harbin Hot Springs, sitting as close as two people can be, at the perfectly dim bar of Pizzaiolo, sipping red wine and sharing succulent smooches, grilling steak on the springtime rooftop of Athena’s beloved Lake Merritt apartment, laying entwined on a blanket on a sunny, wave-slapped beach…. And yet, somehow, all of this candied delight evokes bleeding and screams, as the gentle river carries One merrily along.

God I amuse myself. I could get perpetually lost in the luxurious, rolling landscapes of memory as simultaneously revealed and concealed by worlds of words… But I came here to expose myself. I came here to tell you that I thought I was finally free from the sprawling sentence of strenuous heartache that is being in unrelenting love with this married man. He gave me a daughter because that is what I wanted more than anything. And maybe he wanted to be the One, because it would mean fusing an undeniable bond for this life and perhaps beyond. I wanted that with HIM. Don’t ask me why… Hearts do not speak the language of reason. And I hesitate to use the “K word” (karma), because it is too easy. The spiritually persuaded, imaginatively lazy tend to castrate Life’s greatest Mysteries, by rampantly slapping that label on every nuanced curve of Existence, and sleepwalking on with glassy, passive eyes. It might be accurate… but alas, I wishn’t to suffocate the fluttering, fragile immensity of the Unknown through which we swim.

How on earth am I going to deliver myself back to the original track of this well-intentioned telling??? As I stated back in paragraph four, Serena is on the precipice of three months alive now. Ed has still not been here to see us. He was there for her birth… A solid pillar of masculine strength and love. And in the hospital, he vowed to come visit within the next few weeks. But it was the holy-days, and there were already others at his job who had put in for time off… Hence, his supervisor would not bless him to take leave. And there I was, a new mother, hormone cocktail sloshing, tears splashing, as the rug is pulled out from beneath my feet. Multiple times, the promise of his presence rebuked at the last minute. All too familiar, it reeks of daddy’s dutiful defacing of my innocent, hope-full heart.

But meanwhile, every day, Serena awakes with a smile that radiates unsayable purity. And her brightness calls me home to the holy mOMent at hand. And all day long, she needs me, and she feeds me with her vulnerable presence and unobstructed soul music… Like I said, I thought I was free from needing Ed. But a few weeks ago, he put in for time off (again), and his supervisor gave him a radiant, green light. It shone all the way from Berkeley to Nevada City, lighting up my Temple of Hope with turquoise glowing shadow play of days shared as a momentarily cohesive, loving family. But shadows, when grasped, just slip like whispers through closed, empty fists.

His boss rebuked his word. Twice more. Meanwhile it was Ed’s birthday. And he was far away in almost every sense of the word. Then came his thirty three year anniversary with his wife… God, looking backward on the last couple of weeks, I can’t pinpoint the address of the monster who hijacked and vandalized my heart… But I can testify of disturbingly familiar feelings of disappointment, betrayal and aloneness. Meanwhile, Serena continued to blind me with her lucid, angelic BEing. And for this glaring paradox, my heart washed with inadvertent sprays of guilt. I shouldn’t ache like this, while holding her to my nectar-gushing breast.

Gosh, the trouble with my passion for colorful, poetic expression, is that it is nearly impossible to venture from point A to point B. Is that a problem? The world is already “Pointy” enough as it is… but… sometimes I want to record my life for posterity’s sake… and I get so dazzled by the scenery along the Way… Feels like navigating a sprawling sea of scintillating sirens.

What must I fuse onto this page for eternal safe keeping? I want to tell you that the way my heart breaks in love with Ed feels like dying a thousand times over. Each time is new. Each time is familiar. Each time I am more masterful at the Art of Death. I have come to wonder of the hidden Gifts of these flash-crucifixions… Is the pain essential? Or is it a result of my stubborn grasp on that which could never be mine? But I will not let go of him. Nor he of me… although in many broken mOMents, he has offered to “set me free”. But I suppose the Freedom I truly seek, can only be realized from behind these bars I have erected in my own heart. Do you understand? It reminds me of a book that my old friend and “tantric lover”, Jay had on his nightstand, once upon a time… “The Only Way Out Is IN”.

I will not find the freedom I seek through manipulating circumstances. Only through breaking until there is nothing left to break… Until all that is left is the pure and unconditional love rushing endlessly from my own whole and Holy heart. Flowing unobstructed from Everywhere to Nowhere and Beyond. I will break as many times as this takes. And I will do it holding Ed’s invisible hand… Because my heart demands this. And I will sing the preposterous stories of my life upon the page… because they dazzle, enchant and endlessly perplex me. And I these stories will deliver me…

…to the hOMe I have never really strayed from in the first place.

What a silly game for God to play as US…

But pretty cool, too…

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